How do you successfully take over a family business? And how do you integrate companies into a single family business? Retail giant Colruyt Group and coach company De Zigeuner explained this during M&A Forum 2025 at Café Costume in Ghent.
Check out the pictures here (Pictures by Vincent Gorissen)
Is there definitely no crease in my tailor-made suit? Many members of our community undoubtedly wondered about this as they prepared for the latest M&A Forum meeting on 25 September. The venue was Café Costume, a tailor in the center of Ghent. It was no coincidence that it was a family business, as the entire evening was devoted to how to take over family businesses and integrate companies. We discussed this with Pieter-Jan Vandevelde, Head of Corporate Development at Colruyt Group, and Tom De Troyer, CEO of Limburg-based coach company De Zigeuner.
After a warm welcome by Charlotte Declercq, Community Manager M&A, Bruno Van Gils took the floor. "Welcome, everyone", began Van Gils, a member of the third generation of the internationally renowned Van Gils family of tailors. "I founded Café Costume in 2006, together with two of my cousins, but to be honest, I bought them out (laughs). A family business is anything but romantic. It is complex, intense and confrontational. At the same time, there is strength in an entrepreneurial family: the bond we share with our staff and customers outside the family."
Family entrepreneurs are incredibly driven, as the crowd immediately noticed with Bruno Van Gils. But what happens when that driving force reaches retirement age? Many entrepreneurs are slowly but surely reaching that point, while the younger generation is not necessarily eager to take over. So how do you successfully take over a family business as an 'outsider'?
Top consultant, but also son-in-law of an entrepreneur
You may know Tom De Troyer as a successful top consultant. Among other things, he co-founded the Belgian branch of the French consultancy firm Eight Advisory. But Tom is also married to the daughter of Jan Vanheusden.
Flash backward to the 2010s. Jan Vanheusden has been at the helm of the family business De Zigeuner, founded by their father Hubert, together with his two brothers Rik and Paul. De Zigeuner is a household name in the coach travel industry, especially in Limburg.
After almost eight decades (founded in 1948), the company is still doing very well. There is only one problem: Jan and his brothers are reaching retirement age, and none of their children were interested in taking over. The brothers realized that they need to look for an external successor to ensure the company's continued existence.
Wait a minute, thinks the son-in-law...
Jan, Rik and Paul Vanheusden engaged an external advisor to draw up an IM (Information Memorandum) for them. The company also enlisted the services of BDO Belgium to initiate the sales process. But in the end, it never came to that. Something started to stir in son-in-law Tom.
"I started thinking to myself: hang on a minute. Okay, the business De Zigeuner may not be the most glamorous", laughed Tom De Troyer. "But I see a great story in it. De Zigeuner is a financially healthy company, not too big and not too small, with an annual turnover of 18 million euros and a growing target audience of senior citizens."
It all starts with building trust...
Tom therefore indicated that he was interested in taking over the company. "What followed was certainly not a normal M&A process. Normally, you mainly look at the figures, but when taking over a family business, emotions play a major role. The brothers wanted to be sure that their baby, which they nurtured over many years, was left in capable hands. That is why we had to start with discussions about how I see the future of the company, how I want to achieve certain goals and what role everyone will play."
Only then did Tom examine the (admittedly limited) financial reporting. "Just before Christmas 2024, we met again. First, we set the price and a few basic agreements in an LED. Then I explained where I want to take the company, how I see governance, how I want to achieve the transition, and how the earn-out structure works. I did set a few conditions: I want to preserve everything the brothers have built up, but I also want to acquire all the shares to avoid discussions between shareholders blocking policy."
It is particularly important that the company continues to flourish
After a few more discussions, Tom and the brothers reached an agreement during the Easter holidays of 2025. "Only then did we involve a law firm, but just one solicitor for both parties. As a confidant, they listened to the concerns and requirements of both sides. This results in an SPA that was acceptable for everyone."
By the end of June 2025, everything was settled in terms of the SPA and financing. "At that point, we communicated our plans to the staff. The employees responded very positively. The closing followed at the end of August."
How are things going today, with Tom at the helm?
"As the new CEO, I want to bring about evolution, not sudden revolution. So, for example, I'm not changing the company name right away. Nor am I immediately taking over the previous CEO's office. I'm sitting downstairs with the team. Of course, I have ideas about how we can do things better. I know where I want the company to be in five years' time. But if you implement changes too quickly, you destroy the company. Besides, if you change everything in a family business after barely five weeks, you’re headed for failure."
Meanwhile, communication is very important. "Half of my days are spent talking to people on the work floor, so that I can get to know them and get them on board with the transition. I also help out on an operational level, especially in this initial phase, because I want to show that I am genuinely interested in the job. That's how you earn the respect of your people."
Okay, but what if you have multiple companies?
Tom De Troyer took over one company with De Zigeuner. But what if you already own several companies and are therefore more of a family group? How do you successfully integrate those companies? Pieter-Jan Vandevelde, Head of Corporate Development at one of the largest family businesses in the country, Colruyt Group, explained.
"When I had been working at Colruyt Group for three months, in 2021", Pieter-Jan recalls, "Jef Colruyt invited me for coffee. He wanted to know how I had experienced my first few months. They had asked me not to focus on negative issues. So I said that I saw good things, but also things that could be improved."
More focus, more integration
At that point, Pieter-Jan saw two crucial areas for improvement. Firstly, Colruyt Group was investing far too much ad hoc in all kinds of companies and sectors. And when the group took over a company, it did far too little to integrate it during those years. This was despite the fact that, according to McKinsey, no less than 50 to 70 percent of failed M&A transactions were mainly due to poor integration. That had to change.
"Colruyt Group does have plans to integrate companies, but they remain a dead letter. As a result, we did not validate anything in terms of integration during due diligence in those years. When we did integrate, we often took too little account of the identity of the companies to be integrated, which caused us to lose revenue. We therefore never submitted this approach to an investment committee. Performance during an integration was not adjusted either. There was not even a separate specialized integration manager. The business unit managers were the people who take on integration."
So it was time for a change
After that coffee with Jef, Pieter-Jan got to work more than ever. "In the coming years, we will be phasing out our non-food activities, because that turns out to be a completely different business, in which others are frankly better. We are clustering energy into one company. Food will, of course, remain very important. Not only do we own many supermarket branches, but we also produce a lot of food. In that context, we acquired industrial bakery Roelandt, for example. In addition, we are focusing more on health and wellbeing through fitness chain Jims and online pharmacy Newpharma."
At the same time, Colruyt Group is focusing more on integration. "Nowadays, we follow a mapped-out end-to-end M&A process with a sophisticated governance structure. Our business unit managers now always use the same M&A tools and templates, which they find easier to navigate. We report on a monthly basis to monitor performance. And three times throughout the process, an investment committee scrutinizes the entire dossier."
What exactly does the process look like?
Nowadays, every acquisition plan follows a well-thought-out approach. "It all starts with the question 'why': why are we acquiring a company? You have to be able to explain that in five lines. Once we've done that, we define the synergies we want to achieve and the capabilities we want to bring in. At the same time, we identify the dissynergies – something we have sometimes underestimated in the past. For example, when Jims acquired the NRG fitness chain, we encountered unexpected costs: NRG fell under a different joint committee, which suddenly resulted in an additional half a million euros in HR costs."
These analyses form the basis for a financial plan, an integration plan with a temporary organizational structure for the transition, a final plan (what will the structure of the group ultimately look like after the integration?) and a governance plan that takes all workstreams into account (finance, HR, IT, commercial, ...). "This gives us a financial and operational plan that is actually feasible."
After the presentations and a Q&A with M&A Community members, the time was ripe to engage in even deeper conversation during a delicious walking dinner. On the way home in the car, many of us probably put on Wannabe by the Spice Girls. Why? Because, according to Pieter-Jan Vandevelde, that song perfectly captures the essence of integration. If you wannabe my lover...
A big thank you to Principal Sponsor, Ansarada, and our other partners, for making this evening possible.
